No-How Generator_Graphic by Victoria Ford
April 2024
I’m excited to launch a new stand-alone website for No-How Generator, an online resource that shares the body of research that makes up my PhD, encompassing the choreographic work and the written thesis. The website uses the poem-like concluding words of my written thesis as a starting point for inviting you to unfurl the ideas and references that it weaves together. You can use the site to get a quick introduction to this body of research or, if you choose, you can dive deeper and spend longer with the full-length writing and choreographic work. I'd love for you to take a look! Huge thanks to Victoria Ford for designing the site, and to Midlands4Cities and De Montfort University for supporting me with the one-year part-time Postdoctoral Fellowship that has made it possible.
Last November, it was a joy to work with Dog Kennel Hill Project on their NEUROLIVE commission, ~ snakeskin in the wild ~ at Siobhan Davies Studios. We’ve just released photos and film documenting the performances on the Neurolive website, and we’ve also recently revisited this work in a workshop with primary school pupils from Siobhan Davies Studios’ next door neighbour Charlotte Sharman School.
Earlier in the autumn, I enjoyed performing in a sharing of research for a new quartet work by choreographer Seke Chimutengwende at The Place, following a week of Choreodrome research together with Seke, Temitope Ajose, Charlie Ashwell and composer Jamie McCarthy.
My work No-How Generator had its London premiere at Sadler’s Wells Lilian Baylis Studio in 2022. Thanks to everyone who came to join us and to all our collaborators, guest performers and the team at Sadler’s Wells.
Here's a recent interview with Dance Art Journal about No-How Generator. I also talked about this work and shared some of the practice as part of the 3-day symposium Choreographic Devices at the ICA.
No-How Generator is a choreographic work. It’s also my practice-based PhD work. I began my artistic doctorate in October 2017, and I’m happy to say that I passed my viva in March 2022. Alongside the choreographic work No-How Generator, my doctoral thesis also has a written part, which can be accessed here and here, for anyone who might like to have a read.
I did my artistic doctorate at De Montfort University (Leicester), thanks to support from AHRC/Midlands4Cities in partnership with Dance4 and Siobhan Davies Dance. I’m so grateful to everyone who has been a fellow traveller with me through this process, especially my PhD supervisors Ramsay Burt, Sally Doughty and Paul Russ, alongside my collaborating performer Katye Coe, my producer Iris Chan, my artistic mentor Siobhan Davies and my examiners ‘Funmi Adewole and Jonathan Burrows.
NEUROLIVE, the 5-year interdisciplinary research project that I am artistic director of, is now in its third year. You can find up-to-date info about it on the project website neurolive.info. Please follow us @neuroliveness on Instagram and Twitter and join us for our next performances, talks and studies, taking place at Siobhan Davies Studios and Goldsmiths University.
I’m slowly giving a long-overdue update to this site and have recently added info about my solo installation performance Loop Atlas for the first time - please have a look.
I’m really thankful to UCLA scholar Kriss Ravetto-Biagioli for recently publishing a paper that talks about Loop Atlas, as well as another that talks about my solo work Riff. I’ve really enjoyed the conversations that she and I have had about these works over the past few years - it really means an absolutely massive amount to me to hear that the ideas from some of my past work still resonate and are remembered and engaged with. It’s so fundamentally important to me that the work that dance artists/choreographers do can keep generating connections across times and isn’t just assumed to disappear without a trace - it keeps resonating and keeps working as compost.
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Thanks for visiting and warm wishes,
Matthias